From seed to market: The Brubakers’ bouquets keep Oxford blooming

Inside the flower shed at Little Creek Valley, trays of seedlings, stacks of newspaper bouquets and freshly cut stems mark the beginning and end of each day for the Brubaker family.

Brad and Shelly Brubaker have owned their current family farm, Little Creek Valley, for 10 years, growing and selling over one hundred types of flowers for nine months of the year.

“It’s just enjoyable all the way through,” Brad Brubaker said. “(There’s) just a lot of variety.”

The Brubakers have been selling flowers for around 15 years and have been attending the Oxford Farmers Market for nearly 14 years.

Other than attending Oxford’s farmers market, the Brubakers sell their flowers to florist shops in the area.

According to Brad Brubakter, the family begins harvesting toward the end of February. This harvesting doesn’t stop until early November. 

In early spring when weather is less predictable, the Brubakers harvest and sell blooming branches from their fruit trees.

Once the weather warms up a bit, they begin growing perennials. When summer comes, the farm is filled with hundreds of different kinds of flowers.

The farm’s flower shed, “the head of operations,” as Brad Brubaker calls it, is where the first and final steps of the family’s craft take place.

At the start of the process, the Brubakers begin by seeding hundreds of flowers in trays inside the farm’s main building over the course of a week.

“We’re planting somewhere between 15 and 30 trays a week,” Brad Brubaker said.

Then, the seeds are placed on heat mats under lights in order to encourage germination. Once these flowers germinate, they are moved and planted inside one of the property’s greenhouses.

Brad Brubaker said that the process succeeds when continual and constant harvesting and planting is achieved.

“To be able to cut flowers,” Brad Brubaker said, “we have to plant every week.”

Some flowers, like tulips, require harvesting up to three times a day.

After the flowers are collected and cut, their stems are placed in water or kept in a freezer until they are arranged, wrapped in a newspaper bouquet and sold.

Brad Brubaker said that they also supply loose flowers to the Oxford Farmers Market to allow locals to create their own bouquets.

The biggest challenge that the Brubakers face is the weather, according to Brad.

“There’s no perfect weather,” Brad Brubaker said, adding that warm and dry weather is best for flower growth.

With the summer season quickly approaching, the Brubakers are more than ready to bring their bouquets to the Oxford Farmers Market, rain or shine.